Angel
"You got a lot to learn about men, kiddo. But I guess you proved that last night." - Angel to Buffy Angel, previously Angelus, is a vampire and the main character of Joss Whedon's television series Angel. ''He appeared in the first three seasons of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer before leaving the show so his love interest Buffy would have a normal life. Angel was born Liam. After being sired by the vampire Darla, Liam changed his name to Angelus and quickly became one of the most sadistic vampires ever to exist. He committed atrocious acts with Darla and established himself as one of the most sadistic vampires in history. He raped and killed several people. After Angelus killed the Kalderash clan's favorite daughter, the group of gypsies cursed him with a soul. He felt great remorse and regret for his actions and changed his name to Angel. This name was inspired by the belief that his little sister Kathy had had in him being an angel. Eventually Angel came to Sunnydale and met vampire slayer Buffy, whom he fell madly in love with. However, the relationship was doomed after Angel lost his soul in a sexual encounter with Buffy, which resulted in him experiencing a moment of perfect happiness. The curse not only ensouled Angel, but made sure that true happiness would cause the loss of Angel's soul. His soul was restored by Willow Rosenberg. Once Angel left Sunnydale and Buffy, he fled to Los Angeles and there he befriended Cordelia Chase and Francis Doyle. However, after Doyle's death Angel and Cordelia recruited Wesley Wyndham Pryce and the three eventually built a team consisting of themselves, Charles Gunn and Fred Burkle. They eventually named their business Angel Investigations, and dedicated themselves to helping the helpless. Through all of this, Angel eventually redeemed himself and became a champion. Biography Human Life as Liam Angel was born human and at the time, his name was Liam. He was born in 1727 in Galway, Ireland, and his father was a silk merchant. His relationship with his parents, especially his father, was very strained, although he had great affection for his younger sister, Kathy. By his twenties, Liam had a taste for alcohol, tavern brawls, whoring and sloth. At the age of 26, Liam was expelled from his own home by his father. He went to the tavern and had a brawl there, and the drunken Liam caught the eye of a woman, who was actually a vampire named Darla. Liam was kicked out of the tavern and met the woman in the tavern in a dark alleyway. At first it seemed there was nothing to fear and she was simply a noblewoman, but after the woman promised to show Liam the world and he accepted, she revealed herself as a vampire and turned him. He did so willingly. This was the end of Liam's human life, and also probably the last day he would be named Liam. After he was turned into a vampire, he renamed himself Angelus. He quickly became one of the most savage vampires ever to have existed, and the price of being turned was the loss of his human soul, which created a terrible demon. This demon acted upon Liam's darkest impulses and murdered several people, mostly innocents. Despite this he later reverted to Angel, one of two of his alter egos. Becoming and Being Angelus After he became the sadistic Angelus, he established himself as history's most sadistic vampire. With Darla, he comitted several atrocious acts although Angelus' sadist tendencies were more recognized. The Master later stated that Darla had been the unpredictable one and everyone recognized Angelus' behavior. While he was Angelus, he also destroyed several families and killed members of them. He committed terrible atrocities but considered the chaste, sweet Drusilla to be his worst. Angel and Darla travelled throughout Europe and he was then dubbed The Scourge of Europe. After raping and killing Daniel Holtz's family, Angelus and Darla were forced to flee through Europe while Holtz chased them, determined to get revenge and avenge his family's death. Although Holtz died, he struck a deal that would later allow him to return to life in 200 years. Before Holtz's death, he killed over 400 vampires. In 1786, Angelus sired a Puritan named Penn, who mimicked Angelus, wreaking havoc on his father and killing his family like Angelus had. Over time, he copied Angelus' "signature" of the time, which was to carve a mark in the form of a cross on the victim's cheek. A lone Angelus encountered The Beast in 1789 in Prussia, where The Beast stood in a field of bodies. The Beast sought the aid of Angelus in killing the Svear Priestesses, a group who wished to banish The Beast who couldn't kill them himself. Angelus rejected the Beast's wish of his assistance, which the Beast reacted to by violently attacking Angelus. A group of Svear Priestesses banished the Beast while Angelus was passing out. On the Christmas Eve of 1838, Angelus killed a man named Daniel in Dublin, Ireland, after winning a game of cards. The man was to be married the next day. In 1860, a young woman named Drusilla from London, England, caught the eye of Darla, who presented her as a gift to Angelus. Drusilla was a pure, sweet and chaste virgin, like her sisters, and she had the potential for sainthood. However, Drusilla also suffered since she was "cursed" with the ability of foresight, which her mother saw as an affront to the Lord. Angelus posed as her priest in order to torment her, and killed her family while she watched. This caused Drusilla to then flee to a convent. On the day Drusilla was to take her holy orders, Angelus massacred the convent. He then had sex with Darla nearly on top of Drusilla, and she was pushed over the edge to complete insanity. At this point, Angelus chose to turn her into a vampire. Drusilla was considered Angelus' "masterpiece", as she was an everlasting testament of his finest cruelty, and her immortality meant that her torment would never end. In 1880, Drusilla turned mild-mannered, mother's boy poet William into a vampire. Angelus served as William's mentor and role model. He taught William about the art of mass slaughter, which included an incident at a wedding party when Angelus beat the groom to death with his own arm. After realizing how much William cared for Drusilla, Angelus slept with her just to hurt him, something William would never forgive. In 1883 Angelus killed a female servant named Margaret. It was at a Christmas party. The woman had a young son. She was one of many people killed by Angelus. In 1888, Spike got himself, Angelus, Darla and Drusilla chased out of London and they eventually forced themselves into an abandoned mine shaft since they were being chased by an angry mob. Angelus warned William, who had now taken the alias of "Spike", not to attract attention of the wrong people, which were apparently angry mobs and the Slayer. Spike took great interest in the mention of the Slayer, and he would then go on to kill two of them, Xin Rong and Nikki Wood. Angelus was moved to tears in 1890 by a production of Giselle, despite being evil. That same year, Spike and Angelus used a trick that involved them holding hands and beheading their enemies with a length of wire in St. Petersburg, Russia. Angelus and Spike were captured in Rome in 1894, by the henchmen of The Immortal, who was a mysterious, seductive being with whom they both had a fierce rivalry. The male vampires were tortured while the female vampires (Darla and Drusilla) had a threesome with the immortal. Incidentally, this is something the female vampires never allowed Angelus and/or Spike to do. Angelus and Spike failed miserably to take revenge. Cursed With Human Soul In 1898, Darla brought home a gypsy girl intended to be a birthday present for Angelus. He raped and murdered the girl with neither him nor Darla knowing that the girl was the favorite daughter of the Kalderash gypsy clan. The Kalderash then cursed him with a soul, avenging their daughter's death. Angelus, who then became Angel, was condemned to suffer an eternity of remorse and attempted to kill a woman but was unable to. Angel lost Darla because of his soul, which she believed was filthy and disgusting. He tried to win her back unsuccessfully, and even pointed out that it was Darla who had brought the girl home, but Darla threw him out in a fit of rage at the restoration of his soul and his new inability to kill innocents. Angel, who was still referred to as 'Angelus', hid innocents from Darla one night, and when they arrived home Darla was infuriated. Fed up with Angel's inability to kill innocents, she scolded him by pointing out that Spike had been killing a Slayer while Angel had been feeding on rats. She gave him the chance to prove that he was still the same and could kill innocents, pointing out that he only killed evil doers like killers and rapists, and presented a baby for him to feed on, whose parents Darla killed. Angel was unable to do so and saved the baby and himself by jumping out the window and fleeing. After he fled he never returned to Darla and wouldn't see her again for over 200 years. After having fled, Angel arrived in the United States. He lived alone and on the streets and fed on rats. By this point he had accepted his re-ensoulment although he still missed and presumably loved Darla and his group who had left him behind after he was cursed with a soul. During the second world war, Angel found himself in the trenches and was nearly killed by Watcher Geoffrey Wyndam-Pryce before escaping into a river. The two were eventually forced into an uneasy alliance in order to destroy the vampire Kakistos' cult. Kakistos was apparently killed and Geoffrey allowed Angel to leave after the cult was destroyed in recognition of his assistance. In the 1920's Angel saved a little puppy from being run over. The owner attempted to seduce him and in turn was brutally rebuffed by Angel.